“I cannot bear that you should stand by and hear the terrible charge against me,” she answered hoarsely. “No, let me go alone to them;” and she struggled to free herself.
But he grasped her slim wrist firmly, saying, “I love you, and will be your protector. If they make allegations against you, they must prove them. I, the man who is to be your husband, may surely know the truth?”
“But promise me that you will not heed what they say—you will not believe their foul, unfounded charges,” she implored, lifting her pale face to his.
“I believe implicitly in you, Gemma,” he answered calmly. “Let them come in.”
Gemma, her hand in that of her lover, stood blanched and trembling in the centre of the room as the two police officers in plain clothes entered.
One was a tall, broad-shouldered, middle-aged man with a pleasant face, a pair of dark, piercing eyes, and tiny coal-black moustache; while the other was younger, and, from the bronze of his countenance, evidently a Silician.
“We are police officers,” the elder man exclaimed. “We would prefer to speak to the signorina alone.”
“I am the closest friend of the signorina,” Armytage said calmly. “I am about to make her my wife.”
The officer shrugged his shoulders, exhibited his palms, and a sarcastic smile played about his lips.
“If I may presume to advise the Signor Conte,” he said, “I certainly think that it would be best if I spoke to her alone.”